Michael Hastings was afraid his car was tampered with

As details about journalist Michael Hastings’ death remain unanswered following the release of a coroner’s report, a neighbor says the late reporter was afraid to get in his own car hours before he died in high-speed crash June 18 in Hollywood.

Hastings, 33, was killed when his Mercedes coupe crashed into a tree just before 5 a.m. that morning,
and details about the collision have been contested in the months
since. A friend of Hastings said days later that the reporter
believed he was being investigated by the government, and the
anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks said one of their attorneys was
contacted by Hastings hours before his death.

In the aftermath, conspiracists floated the possibility that
Hastings’ car had been hacked, or perhaps a hit had been ordered to take
him out before another big story could stir up the political
world. Hastings’ previous works had led to serious consequences
for many of those in power. Most famously, a 2010 Rolling Stone
article by Hastings had directly led to Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s
2010 resignation as US commander in Afghanistan.

On June 17, Hastings allegedly told his colleagues that that he
was going off the radar for a bit because he was working on a
big story. Now only furthering skepticism about the journalist’s
demise, his neighbor tells the Los Angeles Weekly that Hastings
was terrified to get in his own car hours before he died inside
of it.

Jordanna Thigpen tells LA Weekly that Hastings approached her in
the early hours of June 18 and pleaded with her to hand over her
Volvo.

“His behavior grew increasingly erratic. Helicopters often
circle over the hills, but Hastings believed there were more of
them around whenever he was at home, keeping an eye on him. He
came to believe his Mercedes was being tampered with,” Gene
Maddaus wrote for the Weekly

"Nothing I could say could console him," Thigpen told the
paper. "He was scared, and he wanted to leave town.”
Thigpen told Hastings she was experiencing mechanical problems
with her car and declined his pleas to take it for a drive.

According to the neighbor, that meeting occurred after midnight
on the morning of June 18 just five hours before emergency
responders attended the fatal car crash. In the coroner’s report
published last week by investigative journalist Jason Leopold,
family members said Hastings was thought to have just recently
begun taking drugs after almost a decade-and-a-half of sobriety.
Hastings brothers told investigators that the reporter passed out
at around 3 a.m. that morning and suggested he wouldn’t be
surprised if cocaine, marijuana or DMT were being abused at the
time. A toxicology report identified only insignificant traces of
methamphetamines and weed in Hastings’ system, and led officials
to conclude that either couldn’t play role in the crash.

The official report has since ruled out drugs or alcohol as the
reason behind the crash, and perhaps no one will never know why
Hastings’ automobile accelerated down a Hollywood strip that
morning and into a tree. Coupled with the apparent attempts to
warn his associate and WikiLeaks of a possible investigation,
Thigpen’s admission isn’t making it any easier to close the case.
Whether or not Hastings’ fear of driving his own car was
justified by the work he was doing or other stressors at play
will likely never be known. However, it without a doubt adds
another interesting chapter to a puzzling saga worthy of the
investigative work that Hastings made his hallmark.